


The Ghosts of Christmas Past, the Ghosts of Christmas Future

by Claudia_flies



Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst and Fluff and Smut, Captain America: The First Avenger, Christmas, Christmas Eve, Christmas Fluff, Christmas Morning, Christmas everything, Deus Ex Wanda, Explicit Sexual Content, Families of Choice, Food, Gift Fic, M/M, Period-Typical Homophobia, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-22
Updated: 2016-12-22
Packaged: 2018-09-11 05:27:49
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,831
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8956135
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Claudia_flies/pseuds/Claudia_flies
Summary: Family is what you make of it.
Steve, Bucky and two Christmas’ a lifetime apart.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [zilia](https://archiveofourown.org/users/zilia/gifts).



> I was very lucky this year to meet a new friend, so in celebration of that, this is a Yuletide gift fic for Zilia. She wanted Steve and Bucky’s first Christmas after their reunion. With hot sexytimes. I couldn’t decide whether to do post-Azzano or post-CW, so I did both!
> 
> I hope this passes muster, m’dear!
> 
> This has not been beta’d as this was a gift for my beta! I’m sorry for all the missing commas and other errors!
> 
> Thank you to [Annie](http://definitelyannie.tumblr.com/) for the Russian!

  

_“Christmas is a bridge. We need bridges as the river of time flows past. Today's Christmas should mean creating happy hours for tomorrow and reliving those of yesterday.”_

― **Gladys Taber**

 

_I was a quick, wet boy_  
_Diving too deep for coins_  
_All of your street light eyes_  
_Wide on my plastic toys_

_Then when the cops closed the fair_  
_I cut my long baby hair_  
_Stole me a dog-eared map_  
_And called for you everywhere_

_Have I found you?_  
_Flightless bird, jealous, weeping_  
_Or lost you?_

― **Flightless Bird, American Mouth - Iron & Wine**

 

 

It had been so stupid. He had been so stupid. The drugs had still been swimming in his veins and the whole room spinning, hazy like looking at the world through the bottom of a green glass bottle. And suddenly Steve had been there with him, ripping off his restraints and pulling him off the table. He’d been so tall. Like a vision or a dream.

_I thought you were smaller._

And then Bucky had leaned in, kissed him right on the mouth. Woozy and still shaking from the drugs. Steve’s lips had been chapped under his mouth, his breath a bit sour. Bucky had just held onto his lapels and leaned in. Taking whatever pleasant dreamscapes the drugs would give him for once.

But it hadn’t been a dream. Or the drugs. Or anything conjured up by his sick, desperate mind.

There’d been a muffled “Bucky?” from under his lips and he’d sprung away like Steve’s touch on his shoulder had burned.

They hadn’t talked about it since. Steve had tried. Valliant and blushing, but Bucky had just pushed him aside and then hit on his girl with as much lecherousness as he could muster. Steve had stopped trying to talk after that.

He still thinks of Steve’s chapped lips and sour breath. Especially on days like this.

It’s nearly Christmas and they are stuck drudging through the ass end of occupied France with no hope of an extraction until after Christmas day the earliest. They’d been told to find shelter and hunker down if they could when Falsworth radioed back to the SSR base near the coast.

So, Bucky is thinking of Steve’s lips with the snow crunching under his boots. He thinks of the kiss and how it would have never gone. Of how Steve’s arms would have come around him, held him close. It’s a futile little dream he has. The wind picks up suddenly, pressing icy fingers through his coat and down the back of his neck and Bucky shudders.

If he has to sleep another night in a pup tent or a foxhole with Morita he is going to punch someone. Possibly Dum-Dum because he is singing _All the Things You Are_ under his breath for the hundredth time and Bucky hates Tommy Dorsey.

It had played in the dancehall on his last night in New York, and now it only reminds him of how Steve wasn’t there. Reminds him of those girls, and their soft bodies and how he’d go on pretending. Still tries to go on pretending, the worry eating through his gut like rot.

It’s Falsworth who finds it in the dim of the late afternoon, the light of the day already fading around them. Stumbles on the near-hidden gate and a driveway leading up the hill into a secluded clearing. On the clearing stands a house; not just any house. A fancy-ass manor house, with beautiful curved, double stairs leading up to the wide front door. All the windows on each of the three floors are shuttered, but it looks solidly built. Locked up tight against whoever might come by. Doesn’t look like anyone has before them.

It takes Steve no time to break the locks and get the doors open. The inside smells musty and stale as they step through the doors in careful formation, Steve leading with his shield raised. The house must have been closed for some time. All the furniture is covered by white dust sheets, giving everything an eerie feel as they make their way through the rooms, checking each one as they go. The occupants must have had some time to flee. Leaving their property in such a good stead.

They leave the windows mostly shuttered to stop any light from giving them away if a patrol comes this way. It’s unlikely, they haven’t seen any Jerries for nearly a week. The area too fucking rural even for Hydra.

Everything feels ghostly and empty, like much of the small villages in the area had, when they’d passed through. Finally, Morita finds a stash of candles and gets the fire going in the kitchen and dining room. It warms up the house and disbands some of that uncomfortable feeling they all still carry.

They move around the kitchen, investigating cupboards and shelves. Denier nearly weeps when they get into the larder and it’s stocked to the brim with cans and preserves. He holds a set of jars to his chest speaking fast and lyrical while Gabe laughs.

The cellar, when they find it, has a decent stock; sacks of potatoes and other root vegetables stored away.

Bucky wonders if he should feel guilty, taking the food, using their things and burning their firewood, but he’s been in the trenches for too long to care anymore. You take what you can and you survive. The war' changed them all, made them harder, even Steve who looks at the sacks and crates with open longing. Feeling the dusty skins on the potatoes with a gloved hand. Bucky tries not to stare at the soft smile on his face, forcing his own gaze away.

After the range heats up, Denier hustles up a simple dinner of potatoes and cured meats he’d found in the back of the cellar. There had also been two wheels of cheese, which he had petted and cooed over like they were his children. There was also a well-stocked wine rack and dozen bottles of expensive brandy which Dum-Dum graciously liberated from the shelves.

“Je vais préparer un bon dîner demain.”

Denier nods towards the door leading to the back, hands busy carving thin slices of meat off the cured leg joint.

“Il y a un poulailler en arrière, il pourrait y en avoir encore.”

They’re all sitting around the big table in the kitchen, killing time. No one really ready to go out and explore on their own. Everyone taking comfort in the feel of a warm kitchen and the smell of potatoes cooking. Slowly removing their coats and gloves and hats as their bodies warm up from the cold.

Bucky watches Steve across the table. The way his hair stands up on end where he pulled his helmet off. He tries to be covert. Tampers down the desire to run his fingers through it, to tame it, to mess it up worse.

It’s not for him, never was. He’d been so good, held it in his whole life. Now it feels like Zola carved any restraint he has out of him with one of his sharp little scalpels. Leaving Bucky twitching and raw. Throbbing like an open wound.

Steve catches him staring, gives him a smile. A soft, fragile thing and Bucky looks away. Straightens his gloves on the table.

He doesn’t see the smile falter. Doesn’t see the worried looks passing between Gabe and Dum-Dum even after dinner has been served.

Three bottles of stolen wine, bellies full of decent food and the warmth of the fire gets everyone into a better mood, even Bucky. All of them mellow and suddenly filled with the realization that it’s Christmas eve. They are safe, warm and well-fed for the first time in weeks. The realization that they will most likely spend at least another few days in the house. In this strange, small safe-haven they’ve found in the middle of a war zone.

After dinner, they pull the sheets off the furniture in the drawing room and drag several armchairs, a chaise lounge and a small settee by the fire. Kicking off their boots, warming up their socked feet by the hearth. Bucky entertains himself by thinking of the horror on the faces of the fancy folk who would have owned this house at seeing them here. He hopes that they would have welcomed the Howlies, a reward for the long fight behind them. Even longer ahead.

Dum-Dum makes a show of wiggling his toes by the fire with his big toe poking out from a hole until Morita smacks him upside the head.

When Bucky gets back from the pisser, all the seats except the small space next to Steve on the settee are taken.

Steve tries to scoot to the side as much as his huge bulk allows, looking up at Bucky pleadingly. All of the commandos are avoiding his gaze and something sharp and unpleasant shifts in his belly.

_They know._

He has been avoiding Steve. Sharing a tent with Morita. Not talking, not teasing, and maybe all the men have been able to tell since the beginning how wrong it all has been. He wonders if they would be so kind, so understanding if they could really see into his heart, see what secrets he holds.

Of the things he really wants.

With as much faked ease as Bucky can muster, he drops himself down next to Steve’s considerable bulk. It’s like sitting next to a furnace. A furnace that keeps twitching with each breath. Steve is trying to not to touch him, to give him space. It equally infuriates and endears Bucky. Steve could always do that better than anyone.

The warm press of their bodies is both heavenly and horrible. The rank fear is still in him, of being found out, of being blue carded, of Steve’s confused face at the plant.

Finally, Dum-Dum cracks open one of the brandy bottles with a satisfied grunt. Clicking the host of bottles together he’s hidden under his chair. It breaks some of the tension in Bucky, lets him breathe a little easier. A flash of normalcy. Gratefully accepting a glass filled nearly to the brim, letting the liquid burn on the way down. It feels good, like forgetting. He’s lonely and sad and Dum-Dum keeps refilling his glass without prompting late into the night.

It takes a lot for him to get any kind of buzz these days, let alone get properly drunk, so he doesn’t really keep count. The warmth of the brandy eases the ache in his belly, makes him lean into Steve a fraction more, allowing himself this one trespass. Feeling the way Steve presses back. Catching a glimpse of Steve’s face bathed in the firelight from the corner of his eye.

The closed off windows and the dark of the outside woodland hide the passing of the time. It’s very late by the time they’ve finished the bottles and Bucky’s swaying on his feet when he gets up from the settee. Steve has to reach out and steady him. His hand burns on Bucky’s hip, hot and wanted through the thick wool of his fatigues.

Then Steve’s half-dragging, half-carrying him up the staircase and into one of the bedrooms they cleared out earlier. The heat of him pressing all over the side of Bucky’s body. The room still smells a bit stuffy, dust in the air as they trudge over the rugs.

Steve tries to heave Bucky into the bed but Bucky refuses to let go in his drunken haze. Both of them fall on the bed, sending up another cloud of dust. Steve’s heavy weight over him, pressing him deliciously into the mattress. It’s comforting, warm, and Steve’s blushing. Pink high on his cheeks.

Bucky runs his fingers over it, mapping that blush for the first time. Smiling stupidly, adoringly.

“Pretty blush.”

He’s forgotten why he shouldn’t say these things when Steve colors even more at his words. Encouraged, Bucky leans up against Steve’s chest, breathes in the musky scent of him. Burrowing his nose into the gap in Steve’s undershirt. He still smells the same. Smells like home.

Then there is a gentle hand at the back of Bucky's head, carding through his hair. And that soft voice speaking right by his ear, breath warm on the skin.

“Heya, Buck.”

Bucky hums with pleasure at the touch and at the gentle inflection in those words. He can’t remember why he can’t have this. It’s a niggling thought at the back of his head, but he pushes it aside, pressing more firmly into Steve’s chest. Wrapping his arms tighter around Steve’s middle, holding him captive.

“Don’t go.”

“Okay, Buck, I won’t.”

He’s laughing and Bucky smiles. He’s made Steve laugh. It’s the best feeling, warmth spreading in his chest.

“I think that’s the brandy you’re feeling there.”

And he realizes he must have said that out loud. That’s okay. He wants Steve to know that. That Steve makes him warm, makes him feel safe the way nothing after Azzano has.

Bucky doesn’t remember falling asleep, but he must have because he blinks awake disoriented and strangely warm. Wrapped tightly around another body. It is then, with icy clarity, that the memory of the night before rushes back, with that tense, sharp feeling in his stomach again.

The things he said, all the things he did.

He tries to wiggle himself free but only manages to wake Steve up, who rolls almost on top of him with a sleepy grunt. Trapping Bucky between his massive chest and the obscene amount of pillows on the bed. Arms tightening where they still circle Bucky’s body. His voice still muffled by the expanse of Steve’s body, nose wedged into the side of one massive shoulder.

“Steve, I’m so sorry about last night. I don’t know what came over me. Just too much booze I guess.”

He tries to laugh but it comes out sounding empty and hollow. The only reply is a disoriented “Hrgh?”

Steve’s never been a morning person and Bucky prays that Steve doesn’t feel the rock-hard erection in his pants which has in no way diminished by Steve’s closeness. By the press of their bodies. Quite the opposite in fact.

“Just, sorry. About last night. What I said...did.”

He tries to laugh again but now it’s just a dry croak. Tries to shift his hips away.

Steve sighs and his big hands come to circle Bucky’s head, holding him still, captive. Then he looks up, still sleepy and a pillow crease pressed into the side of his cheek. Those beautiful blue eyes of his looking straight at Bucky. They haven’t changed one bit, while everything else has shifted, they are still the same. Still able to stop Bucky in his tracks, to freeze the breath in his lungs. Make him stop in a way nothing else ever has.

There’s still that gentle, sleepy smile on Steve’s face and Bucky wants try cry at the perfection of it. Then Steve leans down and kisses him squarely on the mouth. Lips still dry and chapped like before. His breath is sleep sour, rank from the brandy and meat.

It’s a chaste kiss at first. Just a brief press of lips, cautious and gentle. Bucky breathes out in shock of the touch and Steve’s tongue sneaks out to lick his bottom lip, taking it as an invitation. Deepening the kiss with a quiet moan. Bucky tries to kiss back, shocked and awed. Tries to carve this moment into his memory. Just in case it’s a dream, or some kind of sick hallucination.

The wet press of Steve’s tongue is inexperienced, and Bucky moves his hand to Steve’s jaw to guide him to a better angle. Responding, licking in between those sinful lips he’s tried not to stare at his whole life.

Steve’s breathing hard, smiling gently into the kiss and Bucky whimpers like a dog when Steve pulls back.

“You never gave me a chance to respond. I just needed a bit of time to get my head on straight. What I’ve wanted since I’ve known what wanting was, is maybe possible.”

Bucky feels stupid with it, his tongue too big for his mouth.

“What?”

“I wanted to kiss you back, you moron.”

He stares at Steve for one, still moment. Then he lunges, rolling Steve over to his back and attacking his mouth with the fervor of a man denied for years, a decade. Trying to feel everything, rucking up Steve’s clothing like a teenager getting his first feel behind the bike sheds.

He’s not sure at what point in the night he lost his shoes. Steve must have removed them after he passed out. It makes it easier to shift his legs in between Steve’s, pressing his thighs apart, to feel that hot hard length of Steve's cock press against him through the wool serge of their service trousers.

Bucky’s rutting against his hip, desperate and needy. He wants to paint Steve with his seed, rub it into his skin, make it stick, leave his mark. Something permanent.

Steve fumbles with the buttons of Bucky’s trousers and Bucky moves to return the favor. They are both so impatient, grabbing and pulling the fabric, buttons popping out of the holes with rough tugs.

Steve trembles when Bucky gets his hands into his pants. His cock is massive and he lets out a little desperate _“oh, oh, oh”_ when Bucky teases under the foreskin, thumbing the already slick head. He drinks in the desperate little shudders and pleading whines, feeling Steve’s tight balls and the thatch of coarse hair at the base of his cock. Teasing in a way that he knows feels good until Steve is begging.

Steve’s shoots off only after a few strokes of Bucky’s hand, muffling his moans into a pillow. His cock jerking in Bucky’s grasp, warm come running over his fingers.

Then he’s full of apologies, blushing and embarrassed but Bucky just kisses him quiet. Takes Steve’s hand to his own cock, showing him the best grip, the right rhythm, and Steve picks it up like he’s been made for it. Like he’s done it a thousand times before.

He pulls Bucky against him, burying his nose into the crook of his shoulder. The words, whispered into that dark, small space like a secret.

“Used to listen to you. In the subdivide, heard you through the wall. Used to think about doing it for you. Touching you.”

Steve’s words shoot up his spine like electricity, like a shot of whiskey used to. They make him pant and grunt in time with Steve’s hand over him. The tight grip of Steve’s wide palm squeezing just below the head.

“Fuck, fuck…fuck, Steve.”

And then he’s coming too. Against the bare skin Steve’s stomach, rubbing himself there, marking Steve like he’s wanted to since forever. Steve holds him still against his chest, holds Bucky’s jaw, the side of his neck and kisses him like he means it. Means the words neither of them is really ready to say yet.

They clean up with the freezing cold water in the basin, straighten their clothes, combing their hair into some resemblance of order. Buttoning up their trousers and pulling their boots on.

They both seem at a loss for what to say, no words in their vocabulary for this. Bucky wonders if they have both become so accustomed to hiding. It’s not like they have many options even now.

Gabe and Denier are the only ones up when they got down to the kitchen. The fire in the cooker is already on, warming up the room. They’ve pulled out flour and preserves and cans on the table in preparation for breakfast.

They don’t say anything when Steve and Bucky get into the kitchen, but there is something in Gabe’s smile that gets Bucky’s back up. He moves away from Steve, sitting on the opposite side of the table. Gabe gives him a tight eyed stare and goes out of the back door to investigate the chicken coop.

The morning is cold and frost covers the ground. Bucky can see Gabe breathing into his hands to warm them through the open doorway, his breath visible in the air as he makes his way across the yard.

It becomes apparent fairly quickly that the chickens have turned quite feral. Gabe manages to grab four eggs before he has to run out from all the pecking. They all stand by the door laughing at him and calling him a “chicken” which makes Steve hold his belly and lean into the wood like he can’t breathe. Bucky can’t take his eyes away from the open joy on his face.

In the end, Steve gears up into the suit, collects dozens of eggs, heedless of the pecking and screeching of the birds.

When the birds realize that he is after them as well, they rush out of the coop and all over the frozen yard. Bucky watches from the door in amusement as Steve uses all of his supersoldier agility to catch a bunch of feral chickens and bring them to Denier.

Falsworth, Dum-Dum, and Morita all come down within minutes of each other, all complaining about the squawking of the birds. “Fucking hell, you’re gonna get a whole fleet of Jerries down here with that racket!” Dum-Dum grumbles, but it’s all in good humor and they all eye the eggs covetously. Denier kills and plucks four of the chickens with practiced ease as Steve hands them over. Gabe all but rubs his hands together waxing lyrical about his ma’s recipes.

Steve throws together three soda breads while Denier works on the birds. They smell exactly like his ma’s did back in Brooklyn as he finally pulls them from the oven. Bucky’s never been much of a cook, growing up with his ma and four sisters he never really had to, but he can cook a mean fried egg so he’s ordered on egg duty.

Their breakfast of bread, cheese, fresh eggs and more of the cured meats from the night before is the best they’ve had in months, maybe even for over a year. Everyone gorging and stuffing themselves to the brim. Trying to forget the taste of the rations still sitting in their packs.

Steve gives the final two eggs such a pitiful look that no one challenges him to them. The look on his face as he’s eating is almost as reverent as the look he wore in bed this morning, and it makes the tips of Bucky’s ears burn.

He thinks that Gabe notices but he says nothing, he just smiles and hides it behind a piece of soda bread.

They spend most of the days aimlessly around the house or catching up on sleep. Bucky and Dum-Dum keep a constant load of water on the boil on the stove that everyone gets a chance to wash themselves and some of their clothes as well. They hang a line near the fireplace and leave everyone’s socks and undershirts to dry.

In the early afternoon, Gabe starts cooking the chickens. It’s a close call with a guns-at-dawn standoff between him and Denier and a tense conversation in French. Probably about the superiority of French cuisine over Gabe’s ma’s recipes.

For a moment Bucky thinks that he may have to intervene but as soon as the argument started it stops and Gabe starts to work on the carcasses.

He and Dum-Dum are assigned to chop the turnips and carrots and onions to be roasted with the chickens. Steve gets to embrace his Irish heritage by peeling a load of potatoes. Secretly Bucky thinks he deserves it as the punk will be the one eating most of them. Steve and his pitiful puppy dog gaze that breaks them all over the campfire. There isn’t a man on the team who hasn’t shared their rations with their illustrious leader one time or another.

Denier cooks down a sauce for the birds with a full bottle of wine and juices from the roasting pans when everything else is ready. Then they open a few more bottles of the wines and sit down to eat on the long farmhouse table.

It’s not a bad Christmas dinner, everything considered.

They are all quieter than the night before. All of them somewhere else in their minds. Thinking of loved ones oceans away. Steve scoots his hand over Bucky’s under the table. Giving his fingers a squeeze, like he knows that Bucky can’t stop thinking of his ma and pa and his sisters around the Christmas table.

Afterward, when they are all stuffed to the brim and unable to move, Falsworth radios HQ again. They are told to move out the next day, hike up to a rendezvous point for extraction. A sense of sadness settles over them all at the news. The few days had been a reprieve which they all knew was coming to an end but none of them were quite ready to give up yet.

They spend the evening in front of the fire again, but it’s quieter today, all of them feeling the time slowly slipping away. Bucky doesn’t shy away from Steve this time, sitting pressed to his side.

It’s not long till they're making their excuses about getting all the shut-eye they can. Part of Bucky still wonders if they know, but none of the Howlies say anything, none of them even give them queer looks as they go.

On the stairs Steve reaches out for his hand, twines their fingers together between their bodies, shoulders touching. When they finally close the door behind them, flip the lock closed, Steve is cautious. Running his fingers over the line of buttons on Bucky’s shirt, not moving to open them, just touching.

“Can I?”

A shy smile and so much need shining in his eyes, and at that moment Bucky would give him the world if he could.

“Yeah, Steve. Yeah.”

Steve’s hands are a light touch over the buttons of his shirt, gently sliding the fabric open. Touching the revealed skin with his fingertips. It somehow feels more intimate than their fumblings that morning.

Maybe this is their only chance and Bucky doesn’t want to waste it, so he pushes. Gets Steve’s shirt over his head and walks him backward to the edge of the bed. Pushes him to lie down, crawls all over that magnificent body. Let’s his fingers tease over the peaks of Steve’s nipples and the valley of his abdomen.

They kick off their pants and underwear nearly in sync, smiling sheepishly at each other, finally pressed skin to skin in the dark. Bucky rubs his face over the side of Steve’s neck, peppering it with wet, slow kisses, licking the tendons connecting to his shoulder. Steve smells, tastes, like home.

Steve takes a hold of his wandering hand, guides Bucky's fingers past his leaking cock and his balls, over that smooth bit of skin all the way to the pucker of his asshole. Presses Bucky’s fingers where he wants them. His voice unsure against the slope of Bucky’s shoulder, where he’s pressed his face. Hiding.

“Please…can you?”

Bucky feels the muscle contract against his fingertips, Steve’s breath panting harsh into his skin. The trembling exhales of Bucky’s name. Almost reverent. So he presses in, just a tiny bit, feeling the give.

His face is on fire. Squeezing his eyes shut as his fingers circle over that pulsing bud of skin, pressing in on every other go-around. He shouldn’t want this, shouldn't want to touch Steve here, shouldn't want to stuff himself so far down into Steve’s body no one would be able to separate them.

Then Steve pants “come on, Buck” against his neck, his kisses wet and hot and Bucky scrambles for the little tin of vaseline in his pack, all thoughts of sin and deviance forgotten with that breathy whisper of his name. Slicking up his fingers while Steve grunts and rubs his cock against Bucky's side.

The petroleum jelly is slick, worked in between his fingers as he reaches past Steve’s balls again. It’s so easy this time, so slippery when he presses against Steve’s hole. His finger sliding in easy as anything.

Steve’s hot and tight on the inside. Panting like he’s been shot. Just from that finger, from the feel of Bucky in him.

Steve’s hand is restless over his own cock, pulling and stopping. His huge body twitching as Bucky pushes in another finger, fucks him with them good and hard. Twisting and spreading them a bit, wondering if it’s hurting.

Steve’s trying to hold in the noises he’s making, desperate and shaking with it, and Bucky can’t help the words that stumble out of him against the shell of Steve’s ear. The secrets he’s carried.

“I’d make you mine if I could. Marry you. Treat you right.”

The cords on Steve’s neck stand out in the low light as he comes, a low whine out of his mouth like his dying. Bucky feels the tight squeeze of Steve’s asshole around his fingers, rhythmic and deep. He keeps his fingers in there even after Steve’s finished, feels the hot tight clutch of Steve’s body as he jerks himself off, his spunk wetting Steve’s thighs and balls as he comes too. Marking him again. Mark him as Bucky's.

In the morning they pack up and leave the house behind. Closed and shuttered again like they were never there.

The hike up to the rendezvous point is long, arduous and cold. No one speaks. All of them feeling it in the air, the sense that this has been the last respite they would have for a long while to come.

It ends up as the last Christmas they spend to together for many, many years.

Almost a lifetime some would call it.

 

 

* * * * * * * * *

 

 

 

It doesn’t snow in Wakanda. It bothers Steve more than he wants to admit this time of year. The memories that he holds dear of Christmas’ past are from cold places. Frost creeping over windows, of lit fires and full warm bellies. Of a warm bed the two of them shared.

He’s let go of those dreams now. Knows with startling clarity that Bucky no longer remembers or wants to remember those things. The time stretched too far between them, even the ties he thought everlasting must eventually fray and break.

The beeping of his phone draws him back into the room, out of his own jumbled memories, into the blinking screen and an incoming message. It’s from the command center. There is someone arriving to meet him at the helipad.

He looks at the message uncomprehendingly for a while, not sure of who to expect. Who would come here for him?

They had all gone their separate ways after the Raft. It was better that way, easier to hide. He wonders if something has happened, if another disaster threatens the world again, someone calling on Captain America.

Steve isn’t sure if he has the taste for it anymore. Or the stomach.

He's surprised to see Wanda stepping out of the helicopter when he get’s up to the helipad just in time. He hair is windswept and tangled, and some ways she’s looking like her old self.

Steve hugs her close, reaching out for her from where he stands. She smells like something spicy, comforting and familiar, but he can’t place it. Her hands are soft over his arms and shoulders as she touches him. He sometimes marvels at her hands, the soft skin of them which can hold such destructive power is she so chooses.

Today she smiles at him, it’s still fragile on the edges, but real.

“I’m here to get you.”

Steve can feel the smile pulling at the corners of his own mouth. He’s pretty sure it looks sad, but it’s still a smile. A better imitation of one he's managed for days.

“Wanda, you know I can’t leave.”

Or more accurately, he doesn’t want to leave. Maybe she understands. Hears the unspoken words anyway.

“I’m here to get you both.”

“Wanda...”

Her hands are suddenly hard over his biceps, the sharp press of whatever magic she holds out of control for a fraction of a second. Or maybe it’s on purpose.

“Seriously, Steve. Why did you not tell me? You do not have to carry everything on your own.”

He didn’t want to burden her, didn’t have the words to ask. Not after everything, not after what happened to her at the raft. So instead he’d stayed silent, but Wanda seems to hear the words like she always does.

“Did you not think that I could help? Or that I would not?”

It must have been Barton. He's the only one who knows about the triggers, the only one who would tell Wanda, would ask this of her.

“Clint, hu?”

“Obviously. He’s almost as earnest as you are sometimes.”

“Ouch.”

He rubs his chest like she’s hit him but they are both smiling now.

“Come on, let’s go help your boy.”

He wants to tell her she’s got the wrong idea but somehow the words never make it past his lips. She seems to know it anyway as she pulls him down from the helipad with a knowing smile.

They make their way to the medical facility. The team is already there, cycling the cryo tube through the defrosting procedures. Wanda must have called ahead. There is an edge of jealousy there, that the team would have listened to her. Woken Bucky up without telling Steve.

He looks at Bucky’s sleeping face through the glass and the shards of ice frosted over it. Looks at the slight flare of his nostrils from where he drew in his last breath.

Wanda reaches for his hand, touches his fingers, holds them within her own, warm, slight hand. He wants to go to Bucky but feels frozen in place, held as if by some invisible force between them.

The nurses help him out of the tube and into a plush reclining bed/chair thing, wrapping him in a soft blanket.

Bucky looks up at him and then swiftly away as if ashamed.

Instead of going to him Steve waits as they set up the room. Bing in the storage case. The book is inside it.

Wanda opens the box with a gentle click, touches the leather cover. Fingertips red and flashing. Steve wonders what she sees, wonders if objects can hold memory the way people do. Sometimes he’s afraid to ask her, afraid of the things that she knows.

It’s another hour before Bucky comes in, walking under his own steam this time but still dressed in those white hospital scrubs.

Steve can’t get the words out, so Wanda greets him with a short smile.

“Hello.”

“Why am I out?”

Steve knows he should have expected this, this defensive, closed-off man standing in front of them, but it still hurts worse than he could have known.

Wanda moves closer to him and Steve can see the lines of Bucky’s body stiffen. The tension radiating off him. She pays it no mind and instead takes his flesh hand and pulls it up to her temple, the fingers touching her skin. It’s only a brief moment and then Bucky recoils as if he’s been stuck. Wanda stays still, watching him with her endless, dark eyes that Steve has always struggled to read.

“You see?”

Bucky just nods, mutely, not taking his eyes off hers.

“I will help you.”

“But why?”

His voice breaks at the question in the end, the pain showing through, of how much he feels that he does not deserve this. Wanda’s smile is sad and tired, as if she understands the sentiment, bears the weight of it far beyond her years.

“Because I can. And because this is the season of gift giving.”

“It’s Christmas?”

This time it’s Steve who answers.

“Yeah, Buck. It’s Christmas.”

Steve swears that he can see something soften Bucky’s eyes at that, maybe a memory. Steve wonders, _hopes_ , if they are thinking of the same thing. Wanda breaks the moment and Steve equally hates and loves her for it.

“Do you trust me?”

There is weight to the questions, something behind it that Steve cannot see, something in the memory shared between them. Slowly, after a moment Bucky nods.

When she opens the book Bucky flinches, but Wanda doesn’t stop. Just reads the words, fast and efficient.

“Желание, ржавый, Семнадцать, Рассвет...”

Bucky scrambles out of his chair, and Steve moves to stop her, but Wanda’s hand over his chest freezes Steve in place. It’s somehow strangely heavy, holding him back.

“Печь, Девять, добросердечный, возвращение на родину, Один, грузовой вагон.”

Helplessly Steve watches Bucky, pressing himself into the back wall of the room, Wanda’s head cocked to the side in that unnerving way she has.

“Do you see? They are just words now.”

Buck swallows, painfully slow, the motion visible in the bob of his Adam's apple.

“I do not comply.”

Her face breaks into a smile, genuine and bright this time, and her hand falls away from Steve’s chest and the heaviness goes with it.

“Good.”

She goes to him then, touches the side of his forearm. It’s a simple point of contact and Steve wonders of all the things she must be communicating. The micro expressions filtering across Bucky’s face.

Then she disappears from the room, later T’Challa will tell him that she went out with two members of the Dora Milaje into one of the shopping centers to look for Christmas gifts. But all he knows now is that he and Bucky are alone and suddenly the room feels much smaller.

Steve wants to approach Bucky, wants to hold him but the distance between suddenly feels like miles even when the room feels constricting around him.

“So, uh, I’ll show you where you can get some clothes and, you know, shower.”

The distance remains between them, wide and all encompassing even during the walk up to Steve’s apartment.

“So yeah, you can shower and I’ll get you some clothes and stuff, and we can then figure out what to do...”

He knows he’s babbling, trying to fill the awkward silence between them with inane chatter. Trying to figure out the best way of not letting Bucky knows that Steve has already bought him a closet full of clothing and books and films he might like in preparation for this moment. That he's lived for this moment ever since that cryo tube slid closed all those months ago.

“Steve?”

The hesitancy in that small question and breaks Steve’s heart anew, the careful way Bucky holds himself. His hand curled protectively around the metal stump of his left arm.

“Yeah?”

“Thank you.”

Steve just nods, stupidly and Bucky seems to shrink back into himself a little. Disappearing into the bathroom before Steve can figure out what to say, how to fix it.

He leaves Bucky in the flat with the shower running and a pair of jeans and henley laid on the bed. It feels like cowardice but for once, Steve isn’t ready to stand his ground.

T’Challa is waiting for him in the foyer, almost as if he knew to expect him, motioning Steve to follow him outside. They walk side by side around the building and onto the ledge with a view across the valley. Steve shades his eyes from the glare of the mid-afternoon sun, looking across the river to the private airfield attached to the compound and the sleek, black jet standing there, gleaming in the sun.

It’s beautiful and clearly built for stealth. An easy way across borders which he is not supposed to cross. The best Wakanda has to offer, really.

“This is my gift to you, Captain Rogers.”

“I can’t…”

“Yes, you can, Captain. And this is not only for you.”

There is reproach in T’Challa’s voice that makes Steve look at the other man only to see a gentle smile on his face.

“I’m sure that you are not the only one who misses the cold at Christmas time.”

Steve can only nod, silently watching the jet in the distance, something tight and heavy caught in his throat.

Once Wanda returns from the shopping district it doesn’t take them long to load the plane and get the three of them onboard. The interior is as luxurious as everything else in Wakanda. Comfortable seating and food enough to feed two supersoldiers and Wanda, who has a habit of going back for seconds, or thirds, or fourths. Sometimes Steve wonders if her powers burn even more calories than his own.

The flight is long but comfortable. Bucky snoozes most of the way, his head pressed tightly to the bulkhead in one of the reclining chairs. Steve pretends that he isn’t staring the whole way. Pretends he doesn’t want to sit closer.

They change from the jet into a sleek military stealth helicopter in a private airfield in Newfoundland. It’s dark and cold, nearly 3 am local time. It takes both Steve and Bucky two trips back and forth from the plane to get all the bags and boxes packed in while Wanda sits and waits.

Steve is well aware that she could have as easily moved everything by herself, but maybe she likes watching them grumble and complain. There is that flinty glint in her eye that’s he’s learned to recognize as playfulness. It’s a rare sight, so he complains extra loud when pushing in the last of the boxes.

After a covert flight across the northern United States, the chopper lands on a field buffeted by snowy banks gathered over the fences that surround them. Longer stalks of dead corn still sticking through the white like burned-out matchsticks. Steve knows the house down the hill, could recognize it anywhere, even when it looks so different now. Covered in snow, the windows lit up bright even in the light of the overcast day.

There is a family of snowmen on the yard. Pretty much exactly where the logs had been piled up on that day which now feels so long ago. He and Tony had fought that day too, a grim part of Steve wonders now if Tony finally believes in his dark side.

Clint and Natasha and the older kids had clearly been waging some kind of snow warfare in the front yard. Uneven snow blotches decorate the front walls and edges of the porch.

The combatants now standing around, clearly stopped in their trenched positions by the arrival of the chopper which now rises back into the air behinds them. The only sign of it ever having been there is the disturbed banks of snow.

Clint has Lilly hoisted upside down under his arm while Cooper is looking at them from around the corner of the house holding a pile of snowballs in his hands. Natasha is crouched by the old swing on the porch with a collection of deadly looking snowballs by her feet.

She’s the first to rise and walk up the hill to meet them, dressed in heavy snow gear and hair filled with flecks of snow.

Steve doesn’t really know what to say when she reaches them, the cold air between them like a wall. The things he said to her at their last meeting swirling in his mind. She’s given up so much for him.

“Natasha…”

She moves so suddenly, coming to hug him with fierceness that feels like forgiveness, and Steve can’t help but hold her just a bit too tightly. After a long drawn out moment, she lets him go and looks past Steve, straight at Bucky who’s hanging back from the gate leading up to the house.

“Barnes.”

“Hello, паучок.”

Bucky’s voice is rough with a tense undercurrent of emotion. Steve doesn’t know the word he’s used, the strange infliction of it. It doesn’t sound like an insult and Natasha doesn’t seem to take it as such either. She’s not smiling, but her head cocked to the side, assessing.

“You remember me now?”

“I remember all of you.”

For a brief moment Natasha closes her eyes, like she’s fighting something in herself, trying to not let the emotion show on her face. A brief glimpse through the crack in her facade.

“I’m the only one left.”

“I know.”

There is that undercurrent to their words again that Steve doesn’t fully follow, he isn’t sure if he even wants to.

“It’s better if you don’t.”

Wanda’s voice is quiet like a whisper next to him, yet he still hears it. Feels her hand tugging him down the path towards the house.

“Some things are better left unsaid. Left in the past.”

She leads him away, leaving Natasha and Bucky standing in the snowbank like two black shadows framed by the dead corn.

The house is warm and smells of something sweet and spicy when they finally make it through the door. It’s the same smell Wanda had when she first stepped off the chopper in Wakanda and Steve wonders how long she’s been here.

Clint is hustling the kids out of their snow gear in the hall and herding them upstairs for baths, while Laura shouts her “hello’s” from somewhere in the living room. Steve pops his head around the corner to greet her.

Wanda takes off her coat and marshalls the bags of shopping and mysterious boxes up the stairs in a swirl of red like some kind of a magical Disney princess. Steve can hear the twin shouts of “Presents, presents!” before Clint bangs the bathroom door closed to a pair of frustrated groans.

Bucky and Natasha come in not long after. A strange easing in their postures as Natasha peels off her winter coat and shakes the remainders of snowballs out of her hair. Bucky unzips his parka and hangs it up from one of the hooks. Nodding to Natasha as she heads upstairs like one professional to another, leaving Steve alone with Bucky in the hall.

Steve wants to hover but also not get too close. To not make Bucky feel crowded, or like Steve doesn’t trust him to be by himself. Shrugging and rubbing his hands together awkwardly.

He’s saved by Laura shouting “make yourselves at home!” from the kitchen chorused by banging of pot lids and crockery.

Cautiously Bucky makes his way into the living room and seats himself in the corner of the couch, his eyes tracking around the fireplace and the lit up Christmas tree. The youngest child is playing on the floor, driving a little wooden car around the rug laid in the middle of the room. Nathaniel, Steve thinks his name is. Bucky follows his movements with a faint smile, the fingers on his right hand twitching where they rest against his leg.

It takes him a moment, but eventually the child notices Bucky on the couch, the car stopping by the edge of the shaggy rug. Bucky and the boy look at each other. There is a beat of silence while they both seem to be assessing one another and then Nathaniel crawls up into the couch and into Bucky’s lap. Driving the car over the fabric of Bucky’s jeans, letting out little offbeat vroom vroom noises as he goes. Bucky smiles and tickles his belly and the child screams and laughs with such wild abandon that Steve thinks that he might choke.

“He’s made a friend for life there.”

There’s a wry smile in Laura’s voice. She’s wiping her hands down in a dish towel, standing behind Steve, her eyes fixed on her son and Bucky on the couch. Tracking the gentle way Bucky holds her child with his remaining hand.

Steve suddenly thinks that he will never understand Laura. She’s opened her home to them again, welcomed them even after his actions are what took Clint away from her. Trapped him in a prison with no escape or recourse.

Instead of saying all those things, she pokes him on his side and moves back into the kitchen.

“Come and help me with the potatoes.”

The back of the house is warm from the heat of the range and the several pans cooking on the hob. Steve pulls out the dishes from the oven. They are heavy cast iron and Steve holds them in his hands while Laura moves the potatoes around like they weigh nothing. And to him, they don’t.

She doesn’t look at him when she finally speaks, her eyes fixed on the round, fluffy shapes that sizzle from the hot oil.

“You think I blame you.”

Steve doesn’t really know what to say so instead he stays silent. She keeps moving the potatoes, her motions practiced and easy.

Of course, he blames himself, how could he not. He was the one to make the call, ask them to choose. Laura’s voice is sharp as she nudges the pans in his hands, pulling him back into the warm room, back into the moment.

“You think that after ten years of marriage and five years of dating before that, that’s fifteen years of SHIELD, and you think you are the only one who has ever put my husband at risk.”

She motions for him to slide the trays back into the oven and she closes the door with a snap. Leaning against the counter and finally looking at him with a frank sort of appraisal. Her gaze is more direct than anyone he’s ever met. Solid and grounded.

“I know who I married, Captain, and I know the choices he makes. I may not agree with them but I will always stand by them.”

“Yeah, I just...”

But she doesn’t let him finish.

“Clint told me about him. Your friend.”

She motions towards the living room, with the spatula she’s still holding, where Steve can hear Bucky’s murmured voice, still playing with Nathaniel on the couch.

“You welcomed him back after Loki. You didn’t judge him.”

He opens his mouth to say something but no words come out. It was why he had called Clint, the innate sense that he would understand. Wanda too. Their experience of that kind of darkness. Laura seems to sense his hesitance and she reaches out for him, laying a gentle hand on his arm.

“You are his family too now, and by extension my family. So never doubt your welcome here. Or the welcome of those who you love.”

He hugs her then, gently, reverently. She pats him on his back and whispers “It’s okay” while Steve pretends he isn’t crying. The handle of the spatula presses into his back where she holds him and it makes it easier somehow.

He helps her prepare the rest of the meal of steaks and roasted potatoes, boiled corn, with blue cheese sauce. The kids get meatballs and potatoes. They eat on the table while Laura preps the steaks for the grownups while telling Steve all about their adventures in the snow.

Once they’re done, Laura hustles everyone to bed.

Nathaniel has made his way back to Bucky on the couch, showing him a bright red toy fire truck as Laura scoops him up like a small sack of potatoes.

“Alright, peanut, time for bed for you, mister.”

Nathaniel points at Bucky and goes “buc buc” with a big grin on his face. Laura smiles and kisses the side of his face.

“Yeah, baby, that’s uncle Bucky.”

“buc buc!”

Bucky waves at him and smiles as Laura disappears up the stairs. Herding Cooper and Lily in front of her and minding their complaints with “you can still read in bed”.

Steve struggles to remember the last time he saw Bucky smile like that. Smile like it reached in his eyes, so unlike that rictus pull on his face just before he went back into the ice.

“They named him after Wanda’s brother. He died a year and a bit ago.”

He doesn’t really know why he says that. Bucky’s still smiling but it’s sadder now, quieter.

“Yeah, she showed me. She loved him a lot.”

“Yeah, she did.”

There is a sharp pain in his chest from the memory of that day. Of standing with Natasha, looking at the horizon in the distance, ready to die once more. Of the rage and sorrow that rocked through all of them when Pietro died, when Wanda felt it.

“You’ve been a good big brother to her.”

Steve blinks in surprise, can’t help the disbelief that colors his voice.

“What?”

“You guys are her family now. That’s why she did this.”

Bucky’s shrugging, hand waving at the whole room, the lit up Christmas tree and the food piled on the table. And Bucky is right, as always, even after all these years. They are his family, no matter what he wrote to Tony, no matter how much he has tried to distance himself.

Clint, Wanda, Sam and even Natasha came for him when he really needed them to. Sometimes against their own best interests, against the world.

Bucky reaches out, touches the back of his hand with gentle fingers like he knows. Like he’s hearing Steve’s thoughts out loud.

“You always wore everything on your sleeve, punk.”

Steve tries to fight the hitch in his breath.

Natasha makes a lot of noise coming down the stairs and Steve thinks that it might be on purpose.

It’s Natasha. Of course it’s on purpose.

After her, everyone makes their way down and sits down at the big dinner table. The food is amazing. It feels so much more than just filling his belly. Steve thinks that this is what they mean when they say “soul food”. It’s feeding something more in him than just the superhuman metabolism, and looking around the table he’s pretty sure that others agree too.

Wanda is dousing her potatoes in the blue cheese sauce, rolling them around with her fork until they are totally covered and popping them in her mouth and chewing, her eyes closed in bliss. Clint and Natasha are trying to out eat each other like a pair of particularly cut-throat siblings while Laura watches them in amused horror.

And Bucky. Bucky is eating his meal slowly, savoring each mouthful like it’s his first for a good long while. Shyly helping himself to more sauce and potatoes while no one is looking. Steve tries to covertly push the sauce bowl towards him when he can, and he can see Wanda smiling at him from the corner of his eye. So much for his famed stealth skills.

After dinner, they all shuffle over to the couches and stuff themselves into the cushions to let their stomachs recover. Steve’s not sure how long he dozes off in the corner of the sofa but when he wakes up it’s dark outside and Bucky is gone.

The panic grips him like a vice, filling his stomach with lead, with ice, until Clint grabs his elbow:

“Bucky, he wanted to sleep in the barn outside. I think he was feeling a bit overwhelmed with all the people. I get that, you know.”

“In the barn!?”

Steve is ready to break out his Captain America is disappointed in you-voice, but before he can Clint shoves him on the side of his arm.

“We have a bedroom for him, you idiot. He asked to sleep there, and dude, I’m not going to say no. I get that. Sometimes you just need space.”

“Okay, yeah, no I get that. Sorry.”

He does understand, really, but Steve can’t leave him to sleep in the barn like some kind of an animal. Bucky deserves better. Bucky deserves everything. So, he makes his way across the dark, freezing yard.

The smell of hay and frost lingers in the air as Steve climbs into the rafters of the barn. Bucky’s settled in the hay pile under the big gap in the roof. It’s not like either of them gets cold but Bucky is still bundled under several wool blankets and an old sleeping bag that Laura must have dug up from somewhere.

He rolls to his side as Steve pops his head through the gap in the floor where the ladder sticks out.

“Steve what are you doing here?”

Steve is going to tell him to come back inside, that there’s a nice room for him at the house, but then he gets a better look at the nest of blankets Bucky’s built himself in the hay pile. The bag propped under his head, heavy wool of the blankets that remind him of the army and the faint lights of the stars and the full moon above them.

“It was getting a bit crowded at the house.”

Bucky must know it’s a lie, his eyes tracking Steve as he stands up from the ladder, the awkward tilt to his hands.

“Did you bring any stuff?”

“Uh...”

He must mean things like a sleeping bag or a blanket or anything, but Steve just stares at him stupidly. With a huff, Bucky pulls up the side of the blankets in invitation.

“You’re gonna catch your death if you just stand there looking around like a lump.”

Steve crawls under the wool, trying to hide his face and the tears he can feel prickling in the edges. Poking Bucky on the side just to hide it.

“You’re just gonna have to share, jerk.”

Bucky’s laugh is rough and unpracticed but genuine, the smile reaching his eyes when Steve finally looks up.

“You’re still a punk, Rogers.”

Steve just shoves him more in retaliation and Bucky rolls over to his back with ease, making space under the blankets. The clouds from earlier have cleared and Steve can see the dark expanse of the sky and the millions of stars above them as he lies down.

Bucky’s body next to him is warm and comforting, their breaths visible in the air. Twin puffs disappear and appear in synch as they breathe.

Steve isn’t sure if they snooze or just loose time in the quiet, the warmth of the blankets and belly full of food lulling him into sleep again. He startles up to a line of sweat running down his back. They both run so hot and Steve is roasting in his sweater and jeans even with the frigid air outside of the blanket nest.

He struggles out of his sweater, let’s the cold night air caress the heated skin at the back of his neck. Welcomes the chill over the line of sweat down his back, gluing his t-shirt to the skin. He catches Bucky watching, eyes dark, pupils wide.

“You remember that Christmas in France?”

“Yeah, I do.”

Then Bucky’s surging up from the blankets, grabbing a tight hold of Steve’s neck and pulling him into a kiss. It’s not gentle or kind like the first time, but bruising and heady, like they are now.

Steve works his fly open, wiggles out of his jeans, out of his underwear, pulling Bucky over him and between his legs. Kicking off his shoes.

“You in some kind of a hurry, punk?”

And Steve just nods frantically in between the kisses.

Their shirts ruck up between their bodies as they move against each other like randy teenagers. When Bucky slides his thumb over his nipple Steve tries to contain the whine that escapes from his mouth. Bucky just smirks and leans down to bite the hard nub, wetting the cotton under his tongue until Steve is panting and grinding up against his belly.

He opens Bucky’s jeans, lets his knuckles graze over the bulge of Bucky’s hard cock before shoving his pants over his ass and down his legs until Bucky can kick them off. Sliding his hands under Bucky’s underwear while the jeans are still caught up around his ankles. Enjoying Bucky's frustrated swearing.

Bucky is already leaking. He was always got pretty wet the few times they managed to get some time alone. Steve still remembers the red shiny tip peeking from his foreskin, slick and sour in his mouth.

When Bucky finally frees himself from the jeans, he gets up on his knees and shuffles in between Steve’s legs. Forcing Steve’s thighs apart, pressing up and over his body, stealing another kiss with his hand braced by Steve's shoulder. Bucky’s cock sliding between his legs as he moves, the tip pressing wetly against Steve's hole. It makes him gasp Bucky’s name, whisper “please” into Bucky’s mouth.

Bucky presses two of his fingers into Steve’s mouth and he licks them, gets them wet, knows what’s coming next. He can’t wait, his asshole already aching to be touched. And Bucky seems to know that, runs his spit slick fingertips over that furled skin, feeling it as the muscle contracts under his hand. Steve tries to push back, press into that gentle touch. It’s never been the same since that Christmas in France. Always remembering Bucky’s hands there every time he’s touched himself since.

He has touched himself after, after the ice. Even bought some lube, worked his fingers inside, imagined Bucky’s fingers in their stead. Now he feels the real thing, the thick calloused tips of Bucky’s fingers working him open, pressing and stretching.

Bucky pushes in. It burns and feels good, making him want to bear down and gasp for breath. Get Bucky deeper into him.

“Wait, wait, wait we gotta get some slick.”

Steve whines, needy and wanton, while Bucky rummages through his bag, finally pulling out a small tin of vaseline.

Steve feels the laughter bubble up in him at the memory and lets it out. “Seventy years and nothing’s changed, hu?”

Bucky just smiles and shimmies down Steve’s body, shouldering his thighs apart obscenely. Wide, wide until Steve feels like Bucky can see everything even in the low light. It makes his asshole clench and tremble. He can hear the low rumble of Bucky’s laugh.

“You want it, Rogers?”

Steve thinks that Bucky is still such an asshole and then Bucky’s tongue is at his hole, pressing and licking over that secret skin, and Steve isn’t thinking much of anything. The whimper that escapes him is probably the most pathetic sound he’s ever made and it makes Bucky laugh again, a gentle rumble right against his perineum.

He licks around Steve’s hole, long swipes up and down the crack, all the way up to his balls. Tight and pulled up like he’s ready to go.

Bucky’s tongue makes infuriating gentle circles over his hole, lapping the skin, kissing and sucking it into his mouth until Steve is crying. Then finally, finally, he can feel Bucky’s slick fingers press in. He’s not being gentle, two fingers at once and Steve wants it, bears down and arches into is, getting them deep.

“Steve, fuck, jesus. Take is easy.”

“Want you so fucking much.”

He’s not sure how long Bucky works him, fucking and stretching those fingers in him, working in a third. Steve grunts at the sharp burn of the intrusion, fucks himself back into it. And then the fingers are gone and Bucky is slicking himself up.

Steve pulls up his legs higher, knees on his chest, spreading himself open like a banquet. Steadies Bucky as he finally guides his cock in, hands over Bucky’s waist, his eyes looking down at Steve, hooded and dark.

“You've done this before, right?”

And Steve just shakes his head. He hasn’t, not since France. No one but Bucky.

“What?! Never, even after..?” and then he’s pulling away and Steve is ready to cry in frustration, in want, with that crazy bottomless need he's always carried for Bucky. He’s breathless with it.

“Please, Buck. Please.”

“Steve, I...”

He’s quiet for a moment and Steve holds his breath, to scared to move to say anything. Scared that Bucky might not want this, might not want to be his first.

“This'll be easier on your front.”

Bucky rolls him around, manhandling him with ease. The wool of the blankets is rough under Steve's knees and hands, where his fingers squeeze into the material.

The bulbous head of Bucky’s cock feels massive, the press of it sore, almost sharp as Bucky pushes in. For a brief, terrible moment Steve thinks it’s not going to fit, nearly sobbing with the need of having Bucky in him. He cries out, desperate little pleas and then suddenly Bucky is in him, sliding deep, with a hot, sharp ache.

He’s panting, moaning against the wool, filled with Bucky the way he’s always dreamed of, has always wanted to be. And then Bucky’s arm wraps around his belly, over his chest, palm pressing against Steve’s heart. Pulls him up against Bucky's chest, helpless and spread out, impaled on Bucky’s cock like a sacrifice.

Bucky ruks Steve's t-shirt up to his armpits. Teases his exposed nipples, already tight nubs from the cold air. Pulling and twisting till they're pink and a little sore. Steve likes the ache in his chest and in his ass, the slight edge of pain and danger. Bucky's huge cock in him, his asshole clenching furiously around that iron length as Bucky rocks into him slowly. Dragging over that sensitive bundle of nerves inside of him.

He’s so open and filled he wants to cry with it, wants to beg for Bucky’s hand over his nipples, beg him to touch Steve’s cock which is hard and leaking against his stomach. The red, flushed tip peeking from the foreskin, begging to be touched. Bucky breathes against the back of his neck and the shell of Steve’s ear, desperate little words.

“I’d make you mine if I could. Never let you go.”

“Buck, Bucky...please.”

“Touch yourself, show me.”

Steve’s hand is shaking as he wraps it around his cock, jacks himself slowly, desperate to make it last, but Bucky’s fingers twist around his nipple pulling the flesh taunt as he fucks up into Steve’s body. Steve squeezes himself just below the head, fucks into his own fist, matching Bucky's rhythm.

He wants to tell Bucky how much he loves him, how much this means to Steve, but he can’t get the words out, not the way he means them, everything drowned out in strangled moans as he comes over his own belly and thighs.

Bucky fucks him through it, swearing _“yeah, sweetheart, fuck, just like that”_ into the sweaty skin of Steve’s neck. Biting like he wants to leave a mark. When he finally comes, buried balls deep and wetting Steve’s insides, claiming him inside and out with the teeth marks on his neck.

After a breathless moment Bucky tries to pull out but Steve doesn’t let him. Just rolls them over to their sides, keeping Bucky’s cock inside while they fall asleep. Bucky just crumbles something into his neck that sounds suspiciously like “still a fucking punk, Rogers” and wraps his arm around Steve’s chest. Holding him close.

They wake up to a loud bang.

It’s freezing cold inside the barn, but their little nest of blankets is still toasty and warm. Two super-soldier bodies pumping out warmth like an industrial space heater. There’s another bang and then Clint’s voice echoes through the barn.

“Okay! I’m not gonna come up, ‘cause I don’t want to see any naked butts in my barn, but the kids are chomping at the bit to get to the presents so come down for breakfast before they riot.”

They hear Clint’s departing footfalls and the closing of the barn door.

Steve debates just holding on to Bucky a bit tighter and going back to sleep, but the guilt of making the kids wait wins out in the end. They both grumble and shudder coming out from under the blankets and dress as quickly as possible, wiping themselves down with an old t-shirt as much as possible.

Laura smirks at them when they walk in.

“Oh yeah, I remember that honeymoon period.”

Steve can feel his face heating and Natasha cackles across the table evilly. Wanda just makes a face at all of them.

“At least you don’t have to try and block your mind to what is going on in their heads!”

Steve buries his face in his hands and Natasha cackles some more and then helps herself to the bacon and pancakes stacked on the table.

After breakfast, the kids tear into their presents like ravenous beasts. Wrapping paper and tinsel flying around the room like it’s a particularly glittery warzone.

They go for a walk around the farm, bundled in coats and scarves against the cold. Getting away from the hubbub of the house for a while. They walk and watch the beautiful rise and fall of the landscape covered in white glimmering snow in the fading light. Making their way around the edge of the woodland and over the fields.

Steve watches Bucky from the corner of his eye, the calm settled over his face. He wants to keep the expression there as long as possible. Like it’s his job to keep Bucky happy. He wants it to be his job, for the rest of their lives.

The thought isn’t new. He’s thought about it as long as he can remember. At first, it was just a flight of fancy, something secret and never to be shared. Later he thought that maybe they could, after the war, get away with something. A secret in plain sight. Maybe stay in Paris.

After the ice, he’d watched the men and women on TV and he’d been filled with regret and jealousy. Happiness too, that now someone else can have what he never could.

It’s so easy now to suddenly slide down on one knee in the snow. To look up on that face he’s loved all his life.

Bucky’s eyes widen and Steve can’t help but smile at the look of bewildered horror on his face.

“Steve…”

“Marry me, Buck.”

“What, Steve…get up!”

“Is that a ‘no’?”

“No, it’s not a ‘no’ you giant moron!”

“So, it’s a ‘yes’?”

Bucky drags him up from the ground, dusting the snow off Steve’s knees like an irritated mother would, muttering to himself.

“Is that a ‘yes’ Buck?” and he can’t help himself, smiling stupidly.

“Yes, it’s a ‘yes’, you ginormous jerk.”

Steve crowds Bucky against a tree, kissing his chilled lips and the red flush high on his cheeks. Whispering “I love you” into the skin like a secret. He thinks he tastes sale under his lips, gathered in the corners of Bucky’s eyes.

In the evening they light candles and eat around the big table, crowded around each other and rowdily fighting over the candied yams. They sit in the living room until the wee hours, watching the twinkling lights of the Christmas tree. Hands touching between them on the couch.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! I hope that you have a wonderful holiday season filled with lots of love and good food!
> 
> [All the Things You Are by Tommy Dorsey](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wgqiAoHPxoU)
> 
> [The inspiration for the French manor house.](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/Y3nWmDdDcuA/maxresdefault.jpg)


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